Submersion Games

Moby Dick: the imaginary world conjured up by Herman Melville’s novel is open to multiple interpretations. Through the quest of Captain Ahab, narrated by the narrator Ishmael, the narrative carries layers of meaning that touch on the relationship between human and animal, the immensity of the ocean, the quest for the absolute... How can such a complex work be adapted to the stage, and immerse the audience in a choreographic and musical experience? After the pastoral Deep Cuts, multi-disciplinary artist Bryan Campbell transformed the practice of adaptation into a game – a self-deprecative, reflexive performance, which addresses the different facets of his own relationship to the novel. Interpreting the work from the perspective of ecocidal violence and the underlying eroticism of the novel, Campbell created an environment in which the textual material acts as an underlying current that subverts any reference points. At once a work of subjective research, a sado-masochistic ritual or a maritime concert, Submersion Games draws us into a troubled game driven by the power of desire and the elements.

Bryan Campbell

Bryan Campbell is an American artist living and working in Paris. Since 2008, he has been developing a multidisciplinary body of work combining image, text, song and choreography. After studying at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and at the CCN de Montpellier as part of the Exerce program, he created Research for the Quadruped Protagonist (2011), MARVELOUS (2015), SQUAREDANCE (2019), Janitor of Lunacy: a Filibuster (2021), and Deep Cuts (2023). As a performer, he has worked with Loïc Touzé, AntonijaLivingstone & Jennifer Lacey, DD Dorvillier, Gaëtan Rusquet, Ruth Childs, and the Dance for Plants collective, among others. He has translated Yvonne Rainer’s Poems in collaboration with Vincent Weber, which was published in 2021 by 33 Morceaux Editions, and has published the text of Janitor of Lunacy: a Filibuster in a bilingual edition with Maison Trouble in 2024.